The Commander Ages a Year
by Of Questionable Veracity
Summary: Tali wants to give Shepard something for his birthday. This requires finding out what his birthday is first, then finding something sufficiently special to make an impact. She succeeds.


Shepard did not go out of his way to keep his birthday a secret, he just never mentioned it.

This was not for any particular reason. At first it had mostly been on account of him being a little busy. Later, he'd told himself it was down to professional standards: the fewer personal details he bandied about the better to preserve his authority, he told himself.

It's what mother had always adhered to, after all, and she was an admiral.

Indeed, a lot of the lessons he'd obliquely picked up from mother had come in very useful as more and more authority had landed upon his shoulders. Always look like you know what you're doing. Exude confidence even if you're not feeling any. And, in this particular instance, be distant and mysterious, but approachable and friendly.

A tough line to walk, that last one, and one that did not involve people knowing your birthday so they could buy you a cake and shower you with balloons. That sort of thing undermined your position.

Besides, cake-crumbs might foul the instruments. Probably. This was space, after all.

Ultimately though, after all that he'd just plain forgotten about it, simple as that. Everyone else on-board the Normandy had either been too respectful, intimidated or timid to ask. The Commander was always just 'some age', existing in the indeterminate area of 'Probably older than you'd think, but not too old'. Generally speaking it was just something most people on the Normandy didn't worry about, because why would they?

Not good enough for Tali. She had plans. Birthday plans.

It wasn't as though she hoped that her burgeoning affection for the Commander might somehow be made clear with a surprise gift of something she knew he would dearly love, something that she knew would speak to a deep and fundamental part of him.

Not as if she had daydreamed about him seeing her present and becoming so overcome with joy that he embraced her on the spot, instantly understanding the depth and breadth of her feelings for him and declaring that he shared those same feelings.

And then all this space-kerfuffle coming to a sudden and inexplicable halt and Rannoch being reclaimed so they could live peacefully and happily forever and ever except for occasional, light-hearted shinanigens just to spice things up every now and then.

That would just be unrealistic.

She just felt that the Commander deserved a present. He was a hard working individual who deserved to get something nice on his birthday. That was all. Nothing else.

And for the present to be properly delivered she needed the actual date of his actual birthday. Any other day would be weird. Her reading about human birthday customs had told her that it would be weird and her leading questions asked of the various crewmembers had only confirmed it.

Giving a gift out of the blue would seem odd, she thought. It would require some sort of explanation, which would be uncomfortable. Giving a gift on someone's birthday had a ready-made excuse. Not that she needed one, obviously. She just didn't want to be seen as inappropriate.

Yeah, that was it. Inappropriate. That sounded right.

And Tali couldn't ask around for the date, obviously. After all, no-one on board knew in the first place and asking questions could rumble her surprise plan before it even started. No, Tali knew she had to be covert. Had to do something that played to her strengths. Had to get what she needed by other means. She had just the thing, too.

Technically speaking Tali was not supposed to have access to Alliance military personnel files. But they'd just been sitting there, available for access by anyone with the determination to crack through to them. And she wasn't doing anything actively malicious so, really, what she was doing wasn't hacking _per se_. It was just peeking. And it was for a birthday surprise!

No-one could object to that.

Not that anyone would find out in the first place given how well she covered her tracks, of course. But in theory if anyone found out they couldn't possibly object. Who could object to a birthday surprise? No-one. That's what Tali said to herself, anyway, before triumph from discovering the actual, bonafide date of Shepard's birthday consumed her. Now her plans could move along.

(Even though dates were something of an abstract concept in space, really. What was a year in one place was barely a month in others, let alone trying to keep track of days in the void. This was a given, this was known. But the Normandy, mostly being full of humans, ran on a human calendar and an Earth-approximate day-night cycle. So while the exact date might have been fluffed a touch, Tali had got it a close as she possibly could. Which was more than nothing.)

The actual present part of the whole plan was complicated in an entirely different way. Maintaining the element of surprise was crucial and anyone who found out about what she was doing was a possible point of failure. Given that the present itself was a little on the large side this presented something of an issue.

Tali got around it by hanging up a large tarp in the corner of the hanger bay and telling everyone not to look behind it.

"Shepard's orders," she lied, as seriously as she could. Times like this she was acutely grateful that no-one could really see her face because she might as well have tattooed 'I am trying to mislead you' on her forehead.

As bemused as everyone was they didn't question her. Tali was, after all, one of the old guard and besides they had other things they had to be getting on with.

Miraculously and in defiance of all reason this let the plan continue in something approaching complete secrecy. The hardest part was actually getting the present on board - which required excruciating timing - after which it was basically clear all the way. Tali could hardly believe her luck.

Almost before she knew it the day was upon her.

Shepard stood obligingly in the lift with his eyes closed. Tali had her hands over them anyway, just to be sure. She'd had them there after going up to his cabin and explaining that she had a surprise and that she was going to lead him to it and he should not peek. Shepard was bemused, but happy enough to play along. If nothing else it got him out of the cabin.

"What have I said about my attitude towards surprises?" He asked as the lift crawled downwards towards the hold.

"It's never actually come up before," Tali said, a tremor of doubt flickering through her gut.

"I am generally averse to surprises. As a rule."

Being a professional soldier typically made one averse to surprises, as surprises meant things weren't going according to your plan but according to someone else's plan. And that was bad. Fewer surprises meant fewer things were going wrong which meant less likelihood of dying horribly. That was just logic.

The counterpoint to this being that if nothing was going wrong and everything was going right then it is was merely indicative of something getting ready to go really, really wrong when you least expected it, and a series of lesser misfortunes was preferable in that they could be handled. Possibly.

But that was life.

The doubt that had been pattering along in Tali's gut became more than a flicker and for a moment threatened to drive her away completely. Desperate thoughts of running and hiding in a corner loomed up in her mind. But her resolve stiffened. Her back straightened and her hands remained even more resolutely clasped over his eyes.

"Well you'll like this one. Trust me," she said.

Shepard did trust her. She had ever proven herself to be a solid and dependable member of the team. A foundational member, in fact! Her and Garrus - Shepard felt - were the bedrock on which a considerable portion of his own personal success was built. Thinking this, he could almost feel himself relax.

Her rather soothing presence immediately behind him (agreeably a presence doing the very odd thing of covering his face, but still) helped somewhat. She was close enough for him to feel her warmth. But then she did have to cover his eyes, so that was understandable. Why else would she have got so close?

Before too long the lift finally arrived at its destination. The new lifts were faster.

Once the doors opened Tali carefully steered Shepard out and across the floor of the hold. She'd picked her moment - and got lucky - and the place was deserted other than the two of them.

"And...here. Just stand here. And don't open your eyes until I say!"

Tali held a warning finger up in front of Shepard's face but, as his eyes were still closed, he did not notice. Walking backwards away from him to ensure that there was no peeking Tali groped behind her for the tarp hiding the surprise. After a few false starts she had to actually turn around for a second to find and grab it, pulling it down with a heave and bundling it up to throw to one side.

Through all of this Shepard remained where he was supposed to, eyes closed and arms folded. He'd done stranger things. Like dying that one time.

"Okay. Ta-da!" Tali said, spreading her arms.

Nothing happened.

"You didn't say I could open my eyes," Shepard said.

Tali's glowered at him and put her hands on her hips.

"...open your eyes, Shepard."

Grinning, he did as he was told. Then the grin vanished and he blinked.

What he was looking at made sense on one level, but didn't on several others. He saw articulated, armour-plated arms and legs. He saw a big, arm-mounted gun. He saw a claw. He saw a great big fuck-off combat robot sitting hunched in the cargo bay with a bow tied incongruously around it.

He saw all this, but it was so outrageously out of his place that his brain refused to accept what was right in front of it.

So he blinked again. But the large robot was still there. The ribbon was still there. He was not imagining things.

"An Atlas. That's an Atlas. What's an Atlas doing on the ship? Why is there a bow tied around-"

Something clicked in his head and he whirled about on Tali whose body-language screamed 'expectant'. She was on tenterhooks, though initial reactions seemed positive it was still too early to be sure, at least in her book.

"You got an Atlas? How!" He asked her, amazed.

It was impossible for Shepard to tell if Tali was grinning gleefully or not but she gave off the vibe that she was. Which was accurate, because behind the visor she was doing exactly that.

"I have ways," she said.

The full, tortuous story of how she had acquired, repaired and refurbished the thing (all in secret, to boot) wasn't interesting, it was just tedious. Involving lots of covert shuttle trips to acquire wreckage and lots of secret welding and hurriedly pulling a tarp over her project whenever anyone started paying too much attention.

That she'd managed it at all was nothing short of a miracle.

Or a damning indictment of everyone on board for failing to notice something so obvious.

One of the two.

Not that Shepard was really thinking about that. He was too busy being completely dumbstruck by what was standing in front of him.

It was pretty obvious as well that Tali had put some significant work into the thing beyond just getting it on board. The removal of all Cerberus insignia and the spiffy new N7 paint job (a bit unnecessary, but well-meaning and heartfelt) was one thing, the replacement of the canopy with a proper armored cockpit was another.

And that was just what he could see. Shepard knew for a fact without even having to open it up and poke around that the thing had likely been tuned up to within an inch of its life. He could just feel it.

Gawping, he turned to Tali.

"And why is it - with the bow - with the paint - it's…"

Realisation dawned on Shepard like the sun rising. Or like someone cracking an egg on his head.

"Is this is a _birthday gift_?" He asked, amazed. By this point Tali was practically hopping in place through sheer glee.

"It is! Do you like it?"

"Like it? Tali, you salvaged enemy equipment, somehow smuggled it onto the ship without anyone knowing and then also managed to keep anyone from discovering it while you repaired it and brought it - a very dangerous piece of weaponry! - to what I assume is full operational status in the cargo hold, exposing some serious flaws in our security."

He paused, gave his best frowny face, hands on hips. Then:

"Like it? This is the best birthday I've had in years."

He'd missed a few, but still, his point stood.

Overcome with delight at her plan having come off without a hitch Tali practically threw herself at Shepard who promptly found himself hugged. Surprised by the suddenness of this he could do little else but stand in shock a moment before smiling and hugging her back - he couldn't help himself!

"This is pretty amazing, Tali, I got to say."

"I'm glad you like it," she said, still clinging to him.

He gave her a friendly squeeze and looked over the top of her head to the Atlas, still squatting in the hold, the tarp spread across the floor before it. How that had worked for so long was anyone's guess.

"I really need to pay more attention to what happens down here…" Shepard said, quietly.

Later, far away, laughing maniacally while he chased down fleeing enemies in his fuckoff battlemech, Shepard settled into a braced firing stance and let loose with some of the machine's heavier armaments. After that, the enemies were not fleeing anymore.

"God, I love Tali sometimes," Shepard said to himself, not thinking much of it.

Then he blinked.

That had clicked much more easily than he'd expected.

"Oh," he said.


End file.
